Hashirama's Lamentations
by Hathowda Jun
Summary: Hashirama Senju describes the post war situation in Konoha as he feels it. Poem, one shot.


I founded Konoha in the hopes

that children of shinobi would be able to play and laugh

I have been reborn after the IV shinobi world war

into a new body due to the lingering persistence of seeing through the vision I had

that has fuelled Konoha so far

As much as I trust the next generations

I wanted to see what they wrought

So I was reborn as a sudden Senju to some unscrupulous parents

I can't even remember their names, shame upon nobody

I am a tree, my seeds are important but ultimately I am what I become

Gifted with the wood release as before

and the capacity for immense power

took that tempting and professional application

to join the school of shinobi of my design

Horror of horros!

Homework, tests, grades, assessments,

Bukijutsu practice, Taijutsu classes, desensitization programmes

Expulsion on misbehaviour, pranks outlawed, 24x7 study or else

Parents punish children for not achieving

Teachers scold those who run from class

Even met a teacher once who said that

to be a shinobi determination and persistence had to appear from childhood itself

and so he made five year olds perform d rank jutsu

Appalled, astounded, blindfolded, in despair

Sick and enslaved to a culture I can't support

For what good is laughter without freedom?

TOBIRAMA! Why cause this? THIS, This epitome of a disgusting match up between practice and study

Did you sink so far into the ideal of protecting the village

that you let the slide the purpose it was created for?

Now that I'm a child living amongst these children

And I still haven't laughed yet due to others

I blame myself for having a lack of a vision

It's all "Oh the Shodai's vision is so great we still follow it to today"

till it's seen that they're paying lip service.

The Uchiha, a founding village, gone.

The murderer was a boy who thought he was serving Konoha

His younger borhter was Indra's next incarnation

And that man doesn't show his face to his own daughter

Who by the way has a Sharingan with no idea of what dangers it possess

or the benefits it can provide to ease her burdens

be it as it may that one has to learn on one's own

but isn't the point of recording knowledge to keep

us from reinventing the wheel?

It is true that I discovered sage mode all by myself

I harnessed the natural energy from my plants

and became a sage of my own forest

Even my mokuton is of my own design

I may have had the potential to combine earth and water

but it is I who broke through and merged them into one element

understanding that they're no different

even my medical ninjutsu became a speciality

my case was but unique, not repliatable so I didn't teach them

I was happy to instruct any other mokuton user but alas none came

for all the praise I receive I was a rather specialized shinobi

though it looked like i practiced a thousand jutsu

but at least a thousand i knew, all variants of the same wood release or no

here, knowing a thousand jutsu is the stuff of legends

in my time, when we were fighting, a number below thousand was the stuff of kids

who weren't worthy of the name senju - sen jutsu

Does it demilitarize though, perhaps a use in hindersight?

This reduction in average number of jutsu known a head?

I discovered alas not. Skill determines much more in combat than the jutsu one has

My vision lays forgotten and my head stares into the horizon with conviction

both my real one and the old cliff face

which has suspciously survived a couple of invasions without much harm

I walk from home to school and back again

wearier every night

Shall be recalled to the Pure Land soon, if this continues *chuckle*

Indeed it wasn't idly said: schools kill dreams.

What am I, but a forgotten dream, to be realistic?

One small hope is that children aren't invited till they're six years old

But pray tell me Tobirama, in which world did I tell you seven was adult enough?

To be spared of war is great and I'm happy to see it achieved

was the vision a double negative or a positive instead?

I can't remember. Did I say that children must not be introduced to war young

Or did I envision a happy place where children could play?

It all seems foolish now

Happiness has always been inside - who am I to build a village for it

The only goal the village can possible have now is to maintain this fragile thing, peace.

...which the current Hokage seems intent on keeping

but I wonder, how much of this peace is power threatening to spill

How much is just friendship tying people together?

Do these poeple have notions of what real peace means?

Have they gardened, perhaps cultivated a bonsai tree? Have they felt the true peace of nature in them yet?

Seeing their hard expressions

I cannot but wonder

how these idiots

came to call this peace

Came to call school as a place for children

how shinobi became money launderers

and more importantly, how they dare to call me a prodigy

while I sit among those with the barest notions of chakra

let alone its capabilities

Never have I claimed to know the mysteries

But basic competency has always been my forte

to be an all rounder was my duty

and I see now - a divide and rule policy

at work, acting on society

to keep the one leader above all informed and in control

while the mental slaves below toil unknowing of the life they waste

working for an entity that is them, a protector

who protects for no purpose

Trust I gave, stand by I will by their decision

Even when they have ultimately ignorant purposes like protecting friends

then what is the friends' nindo I ask

"protecting more friends" is the reply

What lunacy is this! - Life is more than protecting a few friends, surely?

Not to judge - but can it even apply to everyone?

Proud of what has been accomplished

AM proud that there are those better than me where they excelled where I could not.

But I weep knowing that I didn't pay attention to the smaller details

And now, my simplest lessons are lost on them all.

-Hashirama Senju


End file.
